


I've got another confession to make

by endearinglysad



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-04
Updated: 2010-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-11 11:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endearinglysad/pseuds/endearinglysad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean just has one question—too bad Sam's not around to answer it. The answers may be in the letters Sam has left him, but Dean doesn't plan on ever finding out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've got another confession to make

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration comes from the Foo Fighters "Best of You" which I was listening to when the story popped almost fully formed into my head. That never happens to me. Gen, I guess, though I prefer to think of it as pre-Sam/Dean and I was thinking Sam/Dean thoughts when I wrote it. Oh, and one more thing—this isn't really set at any particular time (just a vague post-season-one-ness), and I pretty much ignored canon the whole time and just used the details I needed and/or wanted. So…there's that.

The first letter showed up in his Tacoma drop box. Plain white business envelope, no markings except for a light _D_ front and center. No return address, either, but even if he walked the earth for a thousand years and never saw a written word, he’d still recognize that loose scrawl anywhere.

Sam hadn’t used a stamp, therefore, no postmark. So Dean was left holding the first fucking _tiny_ sign that his brother was even still alive, but no way to begin tracking him. He tried to make it be enough that at least he knew Sam had been through Tacoma in the last seven months.

There was other crap in the box too. A couple new credit cards, a letter from Bobby—Dean had stopped swinging by the scrap yard two months after Sam left, quit taking Bobby’s calls three weeks after that—and an honest-to-god thank you note. Sure, it was addressed to Kirk Hammett, but still. He’d take what he could get.

He skimmed the note quickly—Darla Williams, former owner of The Sleeping Sands Inn of Socorro, New Mexico, was _very_ grateful for his help in dealing with her maternal grandfather, who, even though he’d died in 1974, wasn’t too happy that she was selling the family inn so that she could become an artist. She offered him a place to stay anytime he passed through Taos, and since she didn’t own an inn there either, Dean figured he knew what that meant. It was a shame too—she’d had an _amazing _rack—but he hadn’t been much into the whole girl-in-every-port thing for a while.

About seven months, actually.

With a curse, Dean took the whole pile of mail, shoved it under the passenger seat and then hit the gas. If the fucking bastard wanted to say goodbye, Dean wasn’t going to make it that easy on him.

 

~//~

 

The sixth letter was waiting for him when he finally crawled back to Bobby’s eight months after Sam left, tail between his legs and desperate for home. Bobby just looked at him when he opened the door, then stepped aside to let Dean in, sat him down at the table and pressed a beer into his hand. Dean took it gratefully and breathed out his relief when Bobby just asked him how he’d managed to kill a _jiang shi_ with only a handful of rocks and a ballpoint pen. Dean forced a chuckle and told the story, not because it was particularly exciting, but simply so the unspoken _all by yourself_ wouldn’t be the only words hanging in the air.

Conversation led to food, and after Bobby had cooked dinner and they’d eaten, Bobby disappeared down the hall and returned a few minutes later with a familiar looking envelope. He knew it was the sixth letter because it had a small _#6_ underneath the familiar _D_. 

The third letter had been ruined—it had still been tucked into the inside pocket of his coat when he’d been attacked by a black cadejo. If it hadn’t already been turned to confetti by the thing’s claws tearing at him, the gallon of blood and rotting cadejo bits he’d been drenched in after hacking the things head off would have done the trick. He’d burned the letter with his clothes. Letters two, five, and seven were under the front seat with number one; he hadn’t found number four yet.

“Dean,” Bobby started, pulling him back to the small kitchen, and Dean could tell from the hitch in his voice that Bobby wanted to have this conversation about as much as Dean did.  But Bobby never shied away from telling him exactly what he didn’t want to hear. “It’s getting close to a year. Maybe you should find out what the boy has to say.”

Dean didn’t answer but studied Bobby’s face for a minute. Sam had been here, he knew that much just from the same old lack of a stamp. He wondered briefly what Bobby knew, if Sam had given him the explanation he hadn’t bothered to give Dean. There wasn’t pity in Bobby’s eyes, or anger, just the same affectionate exasperation Bobby always looked at them with when he thought they were being “idjits.” Dean wasn’t really in the mood for it. He got up and went to bed without a word, leaving number six sitting unopened on the table behind him.

The next morning the letter was gone. He found it a few months later, under the Impala’s front seat with the others. He added number ten to the pile.

 

~//~

 

Sam had left sometime between a Monday and a Tuesday; Dean wasn’t sure. It wasn’t in the middle of a hunt, so he didn’t even have that to be angry at Sam for. In fact, they’d been celebrating the successful end of a hunt with beers, relaxing at a tiny hole-in-the-wall bar three counties over from where they’d started that morning—they’d had to leave in a hurry. Being a Monday night the place was practically empty, and the hardcore drunks weren’t too interested in monopolizing the pool tables, so he and Sam pretty much had the run of the place.

They didn’t talk much, just enjoyed being together and concentrated on keeping the game going and the beers coming. A long drive ahead of them the next morning meant neither was very interested in getting drunk so they were avoiding harder drinks. Still, Dean was feeling a nice buzz by the time he noticed her.

He kept her in his peripheral vision as he moved around the pool table, watching his brother play and taking his turns as they came. Her hair was that color brown that was half-way to blonde and pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail at the back of her head. She wasn’t wearing much make-up—not a random bar-fly, then—but her mouth was wide and generous and there was a calm tilt to her eyes. Her clothes were simple too, white tank top and blue jeans over scuffed, low-heeled boots, flannel shirt thrown over the back of her chair. She didn’t look like she was looking for anything besides the drink in front of her—just a woman who’d gotten off a long shift somewhere and stopped in to unwind on the way home.

Sam’s hoot of triumph drew his attention back to the table. Dean stared at it blankly for a moment, then realized Sam had sunk the eight ball and won the game. Dean gave his brother the smile he seemed to be waiting for and clapped him on the shoulder with a “Congratulations, man,” then leaned his cue against the table and headed for the bar. He waited for two new beers while Sam racked up the next game, but on the way back to their table, he passed by _her _table. 

By the time he thought to look around for his brother, Sam was gone, nothing but a neat triangle of colored balls waiting at one end of their table. When Dean stumbled into their motel room the next morning, there wasn’t even that much of Sam left behind.

 

~//~

 

Number eleven came to Dean unexpectedly. He’d driven to southern Wyoming to look into some cattle mutilations, but by the time he’d gotten there, they’d stopped. He poked around for a while, asking questions just to be sure, but didn’t really get anywhere until he visited the Mercer farm—the place next door to farm that had lost the cows.

Amity Mercer met him at the door and gave him a strange look when he introduced himself as Alex Lifeson of Wyoming Game and Fish, but invited him in anyway. She made him tea, which he didn’t drink, and answered his questions politely, if vaguely. He knew there was something she wasn’t telling him but he couldn’t figure out how to draw it out of her. Sam had always been the one who could get people to spill their guts. Finally she simply held up a hand and stopped him, then looked at him seriously for a moment and said, “Dean, it’s taken care of.”

He had his gun out and pointed at her before he’d made the conscious decision to move, but she just stared placidly back at him. “How do you know who I am?” he ground out, voice harsh.

“Sam told me you might come by. He left me something to give to you.” And she calmly got up and walked to the sideboard, pulling a long, white envelope out of one of the small drawers. She returned and pressed the envelope into his empty hand, ignoring the gun in the other one. It didn’t matter—he had forgotten he was holding it anyway.

He took the envelope and left.

 

~//~

 

By the time Dean finally accepted the difference between _taken _and _left_, a few weeks had passed. He’d made Bobby and every other ally they had left crazy with his frantic searching, but finally he had to face the facts. The chances that some hell-beast would have taken the time to pack up all of Sam’s gear _and _make the fucking bed were pretty slim. He thought about hunting his brother down, finding him wherever he was hiding and beating the shit out of him for leaving again. Then he’d toss his little brother back in the car where he belonged and they could get on the road again.

But Sam was a hunter too, and for all that he had claimed to hate it for all those years, he was still good at it. He knew all Sam’s tricks, of course, but Sam knew his too, and the truth was if Sam wanted to stay off the grid, he could. Easily. He’d have as much trouble finding Sam and they’d had finding Dad, and even then, Sam would have to want to be found.

So Dean imitated his brother in a subtle manner—or by dumping all his crap in a pile in the backseat of the Impala—and hightailed it for the coast. No way in hell he was going through California, so he headed east instead. It was March, and Fort Lauderdale was sounding pretty good right about now. Hot chicks, cold beer, and his anger would be enough to keep him busy until he found a new case.

But the latter beat the former and he was hip deep in ghouls before he made it halfway through Texas. He took one job after another, hacking his way through various mid-western beasties until he realized he wasn’t angry anymore. The first night he found himself lying in the dark of a silent motel room, staring at the empty bed next to him and wondering where it had all gone wrong, he got up, picked up his keys from the dresser, walked calmly out to the Impala in nothing but his boxers and got his emergency bottle of tequila out of the trunk.   Back in his room, door securely locked and salted, he drank until his questions were swimming in an incomprehensible soup and he wasn’t worried about the answers anymore. The three-day hangover helped too.

When he finally let himself revisit that night, he couldn’t think of a single thing that had been unusual or out of place. Drinks and pool, and nothing they hadn’t done a hundred times in the past year. The bartender wasn’t a demon, the bar wasn’t haunted, and the chick he’d taken back to her place wasn’t some witch hell-bent on revenge or random torture—he’d checked, on all three. There was nothing unusual about any of it. He couldn’t even remember the girl’s face—just another pretty diversion in a long line of them. And Sam…had never had a problem with any of the others.

So Dean kept hunting, took what he could get when he could get it and ddn't worry about what he didn’t have—no Sam, no home, just a pile of unread letters under the seat.

 

~//~

 

Thirteen months after Sam had left Dean ran into Jo Harvelle in a bar in Phoenix. They spent a little while catching up; he asked after her mother and answered her questions about Bobby and waited for her to ask about Sam.

When she got up to leave she still hadn’t mentioned the 6’4” elephant at their table, so he wasn’t a bit surprised when she pressed a kiss to his cheek and an envelope into his hand. _#4._

“Dean,” she said quietly, and waited until his gaze shifted from the envelope to her face. “Promise me you’ll read it.”

He nodded tightly, returned the quick hug she gave him, and watched her walk out of the bar. The envelope felt like lead in his palm.

 

~//~

 

He lasted another week.

Number four was still sitting on the seat beside him. He kept meaning to push it under the seat with its brothers, but every time he reached for it he heard Jo’s voice telling him to read it. And he wanted to read it.

He realized with Jo’s envelope that he hadn’t received a letter from Sam for a while. Number twelve had turned up in Dad’s old storeroom in New York, but that had been almost two months ago. He’d found none since then, and he had _not_ made it a point to drive to each and every one of their drop boxes to check.

He picked the envelope up. He wondered where and when Sam had run into Jo. If he’d had this envelope ready to leave somewhere else, but decided to give it to her instead. Or had he sought her out and left it with her, thinking that Dean would go looking for her eventually.

He tapped it against his palm, feeling the weight of it. It was thin, light—there couldn’t be more than one folded sheet in there. Whatever Sam had to say, it must not have taken him long to say it. 

Dean huffed out a breath, exasperated. When had he turned into such a girl? He grabbed his dinner off the seat next to him and thrust himself angrily out of the car. Stomping into his motel room, he dropped both on the table and detoured to the tiny bathroom. He washed his hands, washed his face. He wasn’t really dirty; he hadn’t been doing much today besides driving around and ignoring the eleven white envelopes that were riding shotgun.

He ate his dinner slowly, staring at the envelope on the other side of the table. The fries went first, then the burger, grilled to perfection and loaded with bacon and cheese and extra onions. He chewed each bite carefully, not really thinking about anything. He would know when it was time.

He popped the last bite in his mouth, chewed slowly, wiped his greasy fingers on his pants instead of the napkin in front of him. He picked up his soda, drained it, and set the cup back down and picked up the envelope.

He didn’t tear it open, but he didn’t let himself pause before he was lifting the back flap and pulling out the folded sheet of paper inside.

He read it quickly.

_35°14′58″N_ _112°11′24″W_

_Pine Country Restaurant_

The note ended with a time and date—a date months past. Dean stared at it. 

“What the fuck?” he said aloud, but of course there was no answer.

He flipped the letter over, hoping for more information, but there was nothing. No _good bye_, no _I’m sorry_, no _I l-_

Dean stopped himself. He had to see the rest of the letters.

He ran out to the car and ripped the passenger door open, banged his head on the dash as he bent to reach under the seat. Contents had shifted over the months, but a few minutes of digging produced ten slightly-less-than-pristine white envelopes. He didn’t even wait to get back inside his room, just ripped into the envelopes right there in the front seat of the car.

Ten letters, and every single one of them was the same: coordinates, _Pine Country Restaurant_, a date and time, and nothing else. Only the dates were different.

Dean stared at the letters. He’d wondered if Sam was trying to send him on cases, but these all led to the same place. And surely no case was so hard that Sam couldn’t solve it himself in _thirteen months_. 

There had to be a reason Sam wanted him to go to this random restaurant. Maybe he’d left something there for Dean? He didn’t let himself consider that this was the location of Sam himself, because if he’d been driving around in that car for thirteen months with the way to find Sam less than a foot away from him he was going to put his gun in his mouth right now.

Looking at the letters again, Dean considered the dates. On a whim, he pulled a small 24-month calendar out of the glove box in front of him—a little freebie he’d picked up at some coffee shop somewhere—and started looking up the dates.

All Wednesdays.

The third Wednesday, in fact, of every month that Sam had been gone—every Wednesday but the first, the fourth, and the fifth. He bet that if he went back in his room and looked at number 4 that he’d find the fifth-month Wednesday, and the letter that had died with the black cadejo had probably been the fourth.

There was really only one thing to do.

 

~//~

 

The coordinates led to a tiny town in northern Arizona called Williams. Dean was still in Phoenix, though. 

He wasn’t going to be stubborn—he definitely planned on getting to Williams in time for the next third Wednesday. He would find whatever Sam wanted to find, and then he was going to find Sam. And then he was going to find someone who could make sure that Sam could never get away from him again. He’d go to a fucking voodoo priestess if he had to.

But in the meantime, he still had ten days before the third Wednesday rolled around. Williams was about a three hour drive from Phoenix, and if he left now, he’d go crazy waiting. Plus, he had a case to finish first. So he stayed and did his job and tried not to will time to pass faster.

Turned out the monster killing guests out on the green at the Biltmore Country Club was not a chupacabra after all but a long dead migrant farmer who was shredding them with his rake. The guy had been dead for a hundred years, but with a _lot_ of research, Dean had found his grave—right under the 15th hole—and salted and burned the bones. Of course, he’d still managed get a shoulder full of fucking _rake_ before all was said and done, but he still had mobility in the arm and he didn’t look like a pile of shredded beef, so Dean took what he could get and called it a win.

Now he could go; tomorrow was Wednesday.

 

~//~

 

Williams wasn’t huge. There was pretty much the main drag and the more touristy area around the train depot. It didn’t take him long to find the Pine Country Restaurant. He scoped the place out as he drove by, but didn’t go in.

He checked into the first motel he passed after the restaurant and then settled in to wait. Now that he was so close he felt like his skin was buzzing. He wanted to go out right now and find his brother. He could admit now that Sam was here. He _knew _he was here, and that he’d been waiting for a year for Dean to just come and find him.

Dean was fine without his brother; the last year had proved that. He could hunt, and he could relax, he could enjoy a good burger and a shot of fine whiskey. He could live without Sam.

But he didn’t want to. The last year had proved that, too.

He looked at the clock. It was only 8:30pm—much earlier than his usual bedtime, but there was nothing else he could think to do. There was no way in hell he’d be able to sit and watch TV, and he really didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep ether, but it seemed like the better option. He stripped down to boxers and t-shirt and climbed into bed. It was hard and his shoulder was sore, but surprisingly, he slept.

 

~//~

 

Every note Sam had left him said 11:30am. Dean was in a booth stirring a cup of coffee at 6:30.

He’d picked a booth in the back that faced the door. He could see the entire room and everyone who walked in the door; there was no way he’d miss Sam when he came in.

_If_ he came in.

He’d tried not to consider the possibility, but he hadn’t received an envelope last month. Maybe Sam had given up on him. 

Dean pushed the thought aside; it didn’t really matter. He was going to sit here until Sam came, and if he didn’t come today, then Dean would start asking around, see if anyone had noticed a lonely sasquatch coming in once a month to mope alone in a booth. He felt a pang at the thought of Sam waiting for him month after month, but there was nothing he could do about that now. And he planned to make it up to Sam when he saw him, so.

He nursed his coffee and ordered breakfast. He wasn’t hungry, didn’t think he could eat even if he was, but he didn’t want to get kicked out. He played with his food for an hour until the waitress took pity on him and took his plate away, coming back periodically to fill his cup. He read the local paper, then started working through the state paper, then moved on to the local real estate guides. He had just returned to his table with a stack of travel brochures (most for the Grand Canyon, which was only about an hour away), when the waitress stopped to check on him again.

She refilled his cup and gave him a smile, then held out her hand. “This is for you,” she said.

He stared at the plain, white envelope in her hand, finally reaching out to take it when her friendly smile turned to concern.

He looked around the restaurant—no Sam. 

Sam wasn’t here. This wasn’t some planned reunion, Sam wasn’t waiting for Dean. He’d left him a note, something for Dean to find, and that was it. He wondered if this was finally the goodbye he’d been hiding under Sam’s seat in the Impala for a year. He wondered why Sam had made him play this game, tried for a year to get him here for no apparent reason.

He didn’t even want to open the envelope. He could leave it sitting on the table and walk out of this restaurant and into the rest of his life. He could just keep driving, keep hunting. Bobby would help him out if he needed it, and as long as the Impala kept running he could keep going until some monster got the better of him. He could be fine without his brother.

He couldn’t make himself believe it.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat, ignored the over-sweetened coffee cooling on the table next to him, and picked up the envelope. He had to know. Once he knew for sure, then he could walk away. He slid his finger under the flap, and opened the envelope.

There was no note. No coordinates, no date. The only thing in the envelope was an ID.

It was one of his IDs, the one he’d used in Phoenix, in fact. An ID that he knew for certain that he’d tucked back into the box with the rest the morning before when he’d packed up and headed for Williams. It had to have come from the trunk.

Dean was out of the restaurant before he could blink, leaving behind a twenty dollar bill on the table and a disgruntled waitress with a full tray who’d had to dodge out of his path. He ran into the parking lot, rounded the edge of the building to where he’d parked the Impala…

And there he was. He was sitting on the hood, arms resting lightly on his legs and clasped hands dangling between his knees. His hair was longer, curling a little at the nape of his neck and falling into his eyes. He was squinting in the midmorning sun, but there was a small smile playing across his mouth. He was watching Dean, waiting for him to take the last few steps to the Impala.

Dean was frozen. He stared at his brother, drinking in the sight of him, memorizing the shape of his hands and the way his skin glowed in the sun. Watching his hair shift in the breeze and wishing there was some way he could keep this sight in front of him forever.

In the end Sam came to him.

He stopped in front of Dean, and Dean realized that Sam was staring at him too. He could see the battle in his brother’s eyes—guilt and sorrow and shining joy, and suddenly he wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.

He settled for a crooked smirk instead. “Sorry I’m late, Sammy. Had a little trouble finding the place.”

Sammy let out a choked-off laugh and then his arms were around Dean and Dean was clinging back. They hugged tightly, and Dean figured he didn’t have to worry about losing Sam again.

Finally his brother drew back, blinking rapidly and biting his lip. But he was smiling—they both were.

“I knew you’d make it here eventually,” he said simply, his eyes never leaving Dean’s face.

“Yeah, about that. What is ‘here’ exactly? I mean, why this place?”

Sam’s smile deepened and he laughed, dimples sinking deep in his face, and Dean’s stomach clenched at the sight. How could he have ever thought that he could live without this?

“Well, apparently they have the best pie in the continental United States,” Sam answered. “I figured that alone would make it worth your trip.”

Dean couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I guess you know me, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sam whispered, choking up again.

“Well, that’s one question answered,” Dean said. “You know I have one more.”

“I know,” Sam answered. “I want to tell you.”

“Good.” Dean smiled again, grabbed Sam by the elbow and started pulling him back towards the front door of the restaurant. “But pie first.”

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. I don't live in Williams, but I do live in Arizona, and apparently the [Pine Country Restaurant](http://pinecountryrestaurant.com/) really does have the best pie anywhere. Their pies are like, 8 inches high in the center I swear. Also, those are the real GPS coordinates if anyone ever feels like dropping in to try for themselves.


End file.
